I was forced to remove my WordPress blog to fnd out if that is the security weakness. Now it's a waiting game, to see if my pages get compromised again.

If they do, then Servage is to blame, as all I have left are static web pages (with 644 permissions).

I complained to Servage a couple of months ago, and they told me it's my fault, my blog script or file permissions. Their Control Panel has a history thing which is supposed to show who has logged in and they told me to look at that to see if anyone else has logged in -- except that feature of the Control Panel isn't working. Anyway, I changed the password. I'm not looking forward to going back to Servage customer support -- their responses are close to brain dead._________________http://bkhome.org/news/

Do you think there could be stuff in the ISOs? Can the "baddies" put things in the ibiblio downloads, or can they only mess with web pages?

Simply look at the modification date.

My personal experience is, that such attacs are automated scripts, that do not infect a particular domain.
Instead, they search the web for typical bugs in PHP or applications (like wordpress). They infect whatever they find, but do not target on "Linux-sites" or other special topics.
They then install some code hidden in iframes or a "this site was hacked by ultracool ME".
Modifying isos or packages is not to be feared.
This requires advanced knowledge and "manual" operations (like extracting and rebuilding and uploading again).
You than could see that by the change in the date of the file.

GENERAL HINT
If you must use windows to surf (e.g. at work), DO use firefox or other browsers!
Even very trusted sites were infected in the last weeks (famous newspapers and such) by using the advertisment banners (hosted by other companies) as a way to infect the sites.
Most exploits still target on the Internet Explorer, that makes it easy to damage the whole system via ActiveX.
Use a browser, that is targeted less often, and does not support ActiveX instead.

Someone who is infected, has a high portion of responsibility on his own, because he does not even care about simplest protection.
Windows is know to be dangerous in this regard since years, even users without deeper knowlede in computers should know that.

Though I hate playing the Devil's advocate, Mark, that's a rather pious claim and I can't but help notice an ever-so-faint tick-tock way off in the distance.

Not all black hats are script kiddies or index.html graffiti vandals. Some are very patient and cunning. All it would take is for one such black hat to embed a date/time/event triggered nightmare within a popular and seemingly innocuous dotpup, pupget or sfs file for all Hell to break loose.

We now return you to your normally scheduled programming._________________hangout: ##b0rked on irc.freenode.net
diversion:http://alienjeff.net - visit The Fringe
quote: "The foundation of authority is based upon the consent of the people." - Thomas Hooker

All it would take is for one such black hat to embed a date/time/event triggered nightmare within a popular and seemingly innocuous dotpup

How would they do that? I understood Mark to be saying that they'd actually have to get the file and upload a tainted version, rather than just get the bad stuff on there by sending out scripts . What sort of "nightmare" could happen?

Not all black hats are script kiddies or index.html graffiti vandals. Some are very patient and cunning. All it would take is for one such black hat to embed a date/time/event triggered nightmare within a popular and seemingly innocuous dotpup, pupget or sfs file for all Hell to break loose.

In theory someone with access to the server can:
Download a pup/iso.
Add a trojan.
Repackage it.
Modify the system date.
Re-upload the modified package, including a modified md5sum.
Reset the system time to the current time.

The only protection would be to store the md5sum on a seperate server, or by using a script, that compares the md5sums with the ones on your local computer.

I do not want to spread fear, I already got the first PM now about a concerned user.
I just describe what is possible in theory.

In practice, the time a cracker has to invest will not match all all what he can win.

The scripts I mentioned above are spread using botnets, that already infected millions of Windows-computers.
Most windows-users are not aware, that they are part of a botnet!

It is so darned easy to do it this way, that in practice no cracker will waste time in modifiying pups.

However for minisys, we soon will activate a new fileserver.
The main reason is, that we have reports on download-problems with servage, and their statistics are just a bad joke.
We then will start to set up a business download-area with packages made especially for Muppy (it is free to use for everyone, we just call it "business" because it is made by us as company, to give consultants a trusted site).
This will include enhanced (scripted) mechanisms to ensure that the packages are not cracked.
I will release my scripts then to the public, they are nothing special.

But again, this is a bit "shooting on sparrows (small birds) with canons".
At moment I see no reason to get paranoid, and hope my explanations above make it easier to understand, why.

1) Be patient
2) Develop/modify and test needed app/dotpup
3) Be patient
4) Garner confidence of established community
5) Be patient (notice a trend here?)
4) Offer, promote and maintain app/dotpup
5) Be patient
6) Suggest or wait for app to be included in sfs or ISO
7) Be patient

I'll grant you that it would take the combination of both amazing patience and a very twisted mind to pull something like this off, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility._________________hangout: ##b0rked on irc.freenode.net
diversion:http://alienjeff.net - visit The Fringe
quote: "The foundation of authority is based upon the consent of the people." - Thomas Hooker

I suspect this may have happened very recently...as in a person creating .pets for bad purposes.

There was a new poster recently, and the first post was a .pet for network cracking which was followed by some more suspect .pets (I was suspicious).

With this in mind I emailed various puppians and watched this stuff closely. I also deleted those files from my server.

Since then, I have a group of guys checking new files on my server...so it's not just me watching for black hats...helps me out tremendously.

I set up an area on my server to allow ONLY "trusted puppy providers" thus the name TPP directory and I will slowly move all TPP people into this area. This directory is restricted and monitored closely by the users inside.

I maybe a tad paranoid but better safe than sorry.

Eric_________________Be not afraid to grow slowly, only be afraid of standing still.
Chinese Proverb

Eric
I know exactly what/who you are referring to. Red flags came out almost imediately for me when they jouned and started posting the type of packages that they did. And after the securities issues came to light neither of these folks were anywhere to be seem and haven't been seem since. One of those folks I tracked pretty deep into the other side of the net. Pretty dark place :/

I don't think it is the slightest bit paranoid - it is sensible to look at things with a critical eye and use some judgment. It is much easier for anyone with a bad intent to do something from a position of trust rather than brute force.

I've noticed that there are many linux distros with websites that give virtually no information about who you are dealing with. How many people trawl through the source code to see if there are any backdoors or trojans (or whatever) in there?

I am one of the people that took it deep in the anus on this thing. Unfortunately a lot of my dev software only works on Windows and it's not too often that I get the alerts for virii or use IE. Thankfully I do keep archives and many backups off-machine.

I was running clamAV when this happened and it was a rather quick infection. Incidentally, F-Prot was the only tool that caught it, after the fact.

I had some 35 password/key loggers and trojans installed in less than 30 minutes time. I ended up fdisking ftw. It cost me a day's worth of time to remedy/rebuild and am I dumber for having trusted Puppy websites to be secure.

BTW Word Press is a popular target for hackers. It's riddled with security holes and cross sight scripting vulnerabilities.

If you want secure, powerful, flexible and simple you should definitely check into Drupal.

@Jeff: You are completely correct. It only takes a little bit of patience to sneak something into Puppy legitimately (even as a simple package) that can cause a serious problem. It's very easy to misbehave when you are not denied root access to any part of the OS.

I checked all pages in the main page's menu bar, but that's the extent of my searching. To go any deeper is the job of the owner, not the visitor.

Barry: please leave Dingo be and clean the dog run._________________hangout: ##b0rked on irc.freenode.net
diversion:http://alienjeff.net - visit The Fringe
quote: "The foundation of authority is based upon the consent of the people." - Thomas Hooker

Barry have any stock in pharmaceuticals? If not, stop feeding the bots and spiders._________________hangout: ##b0rked on irc.freenode.net
diversion:http://alienjeff.net - visit The Fringe
quote: "The foundation of authority is based upon the consent of the people." - Thomas Hooker

puppylinux(dot)com still has the IFRAME EXPLOIT embedded in the main page, and the links page still has the pharmaceutical links at the bottom of the source code.

Unless this matter is tended to, sooner or later someone (it won't be me) is going to very ungently report this on DistroWatch and/or similar on-line rags.

P.S.

@John Doe

Clearly neither Servage nor anyone else is doing anything about this. _________________hangout: ##b0rked on irc.freenode.net
diversion:http://alienjeff.net - visit The Fringe
quote: "The foundation of authority is based upon the consent of the people." - Thomas Hooker